You do realise that everything that has ever happened to you, good or bad, has brought you to where you are today.

You may be in a great place right now, so think if any tiny little thing in your past were different it would have changed your trajectory and you may well be in a very different place right now rather than where you are.

All those not so good places were necessary in order for you to be here.

If you’re not in such a great place just realise that you are in one of those not so good places that will lead you to the great place later. So appreciate it for what it is.

Why only appreciate it later? Thank everything and everybody from your past for helping to get you here. Thank ‘here’ for being part of the journey that’s going to get you ‘there’ in the future.

And always remember… in the depths of winter the blossom is waiting to bloom.

Who will you thank, and for what?

Enjoy

Stu

🙂

PS: This is p.358 of my book ‘How To Change Your Life One Day At A Time‘.

I had only one question that I wanted to ask of many complete strangers: WHAT ONE THING YOU WOULD LIKE TO CHANGE ABOUT YOURSELF?

I wanted to document how different people would answer the same question, based on their own lives and circumstances. What I found was in many, many cases their answer led me to ask another question, then another, then a final question. (A process I now call ‘Crossing The River‘).

It was in these instances that those asked gave the most considered responses, delving deeper and deeper into the issue. In many cases they actually answered the most penetrating question they had probably been asked in years, if not decades.

They were as surprised by their answers as I was.

Remarkable considering that not one interview took more than two minutes to complete, AND they were complete strangers to me!

Many wanted to change things about their appearance, some about bad habits they had and some about the way they thought about themselves or others. I was moved and surprised at just how candid these people were, how open. I sincerely hope that some of them went home that day and actually made the change they said they wanted.

So what are the four questions you MUST ask yourself if you want to make any change in your life, whether it’s to do with your relationships, your achievements, your lifestyle, your health, wealth and happiness or your career?

Bare in mind the change MUST be about YOU – not your boss, or your neighbour, or the economy or anything else that you cannot influence.

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Let me suggest that you get someone else to ask you these questions – a close friend or family member or even a colleague. Answer the first one before getting them to ask the second. Then answer that before they ask you the third, and so on.

Answer as quickly as possible too as this is where the revelation is, when your mind doesn’t have time to dwell on and possibly filter the answer. It doesn’t take long – as I said, of the 30 or so interviews I did on that cold day in February, not one took longer than two minutes!

Crossing The River

Here are the 4 questions:

1. What is the ONE thing you’d like to change about YOURSELF today? (This is not about your circumstances, this is about YOU.)

2. Why do you want to make that change?

3. How will you make that change?

4. What’s stopping you?

Make a note of them, then forget about them until you have chosen someone to help you with this insightful exercise. If you decide you want to do them on your own then answer the first question NOW. Quick – answer!

What if you could meet the partner of your dreams? What if you could be as fit as a top athlete? What if you could achieve all of your goals systematically. What if you could have the job you love doing?

We spend so much of our time thinking that we can’t, we forget to consider if we could.

What’s the point you might be asking.

Apart from the fact that thinking about achieving something that would make us feel great actually starts to make us feel great – the very act of thinking in that way actually makes us consider opportunities and options that we are blind to when we’re busy thinking we can’t.

Think about it – if I ask you to think of three reasons why you’ll never win the lottery, it’s impossible for you to come up with ways that you could win.

If I said look around where you are right now and find ALL the red things, you wouldn’t notice all the blue things because that’s not where you are putting your focus. You’d miss all the blue things.

Likewise with continually thinking you can’t – you miss those opportunities in front of you that may just prove that you can.

Try that today – just allow yourself to daydream about all the things you’d like in your life and, just for the purposes of dreaming, imagine that you can have those things. Ask yourself: What if I could…?

Firstly, I think it would be a good idea to start with the premise that the negative comments are ungrounded, ie: not deserved.

(Of course if you being a total idiot about something expect some negative comments, listen to them, and stop being an idiot.) 🙂

So, what if they are ungrounded?

These can come from all quarters; what I refer to as the 3 Fs of Influence – Friend, Foe and Family. Some are well meaning, whereas some are just being mean.

Here are 5 questions to consider that can put you in the right Mindset to tackle them head on:

Are they true and does that even matter?

Do they reflect who you are?

Do they spur you on or deflate you?

How much do you value the opinion of the commenter?

How determined to continue are you?

Let’s take a look at them one at a time…

1. Are they true and does that even matter? – If someone tells you that you’re not a very good writer should that stop you from writing? Of course not. You can either ignore it and remind yourself that there have been many successful writers that weren’t actually very good technically. Or, you can use the comment to motivate yourself to learn more about writing so that you can improve. Either way – continue writing.

2. Do they reflect who you are? – Taking the first example above, does the fact that you might not be a very competent writer detract from you being a writer? Of course not, no more than being an objectively poor painter does not mean you are not a painter. You are whatever you desire to be and no opinion from anyone else alters that.

3. Do they spur you on or deflate you? – This is nearing the crux of the issue, if the negative comment spurs you on – motivates you, then don’t ignore it. In fact, welcome comments of this nature. If on the other hand the comments deflate you, demotivate you, then applying a process like this one to determine what validity they have, this will help you see that other’s opinions have no baring on your ambitions and dreams. Many people told Edison to quit searching for a commercially viable lightbulb – but he didn’t quit, thankfully.

4. How much do you value the opinion of the commenter? – A good teacher will encourage you down your own chosen path. They might offer advice on potential course corrections along the way – in order to be helpful. A bad teacher will encourage you to pursue something based on their beliefs about what you should do. Decide how much value you put on the commenter’s comments and why. Are they trying to help you or steer you to a destination of their choice. As with good parenting, the role of a parent is to give their children the best environment they possibly can in which to make their own choices. Then let them.

5. How determined to continue are you? – This is the deciding factor on whether you continue with an endeavour or not. If you are easily swayed away from an activity ask yourself if it’s really what you wanted. If it wasn’t, then maybe the negative comment was actually useful advice. If not, if you feel an urge to continue, then do just that.

“The problem isn’t the problem. The problem is the way you are thinking about the problem.” ~ Dan Sullivan

The way we think determines every outcome in our life. If you want to master your own Mindset – learn how here: CLICK HERE

Enjoy

Stu

PS: Don’t look back this time next year and find yourself exactly where you are now. Start thinking differently to create different results in your life – TODAY!